Hardly a Dragonslayer
by YuuShka
Summary: During the battle in Ministry of Magic Dawlish pushed Ginny Weasley onto a table with a lot of dangerous magical artefacts. As a result, the youngest Weasley ends up in Middle Earth. Now she has to find a way to get back. If only Thorin Oakenshield didn't find her existence so amusing.
1. Chapter 1

"How did you get here, child?" Gandalf the Grey asked in a soothing voice, while all the dwarves and their hobbit were sitting in a circle around the human girl.

Thorin huffed a breath. The human girl who appeared in a beam of light, had already showed such magic that Thorin, for all for being an almost two hundred years old, never have seen before. It seemed for a moment that the ginger female would overpower them, but then the wizard disarmed her, and now held her magic twig tightly in his fist. The girl was glowering at him, and if Thorin didn't know better, he would bet that she could set the old man on fire.

Come to that, she probably could.

That was one of the reasons why sitting in a circle around her was probably a very stupid idea. There was no telling if it would stop her if she truly wished to run.

"Answer me, young lady, or so help me!" finally Gandalf's admittedly not very large patience broke and he snapped at her.

"I don't know!" She hissed in answer, eyes darting around, stopping for a moment on Dwalin, as if- Yes, Thorin was positively sure she was accessing everyone's level of danger, and soon will make a run for freedom. So the dwarf leader moved from his standing position near Balin to the burglar, effectively closing the ring. Bilbo was the weakest link, and now Thorin killed her only chance. And she knew that as well. She sent him a glare and uttered. "I fell, most likely."

"Fell from where?" Bofur asked, his hat flaps moving worriedly.

"From ministry. Department of mysteries," she answered, though her words barely made sense to anyone. "We were running from Death Eaters, and Dawlish knocked me into this table with what looked like time turners. Next thing I know, I am here, and you are attacking me with your" she waved her hand trying to encompass them all. "With your axes and swords! I'm not even sure you are real and not a figment of my imagination! Who the hell knows what is in that damn department!"

The Company reacted as predicted, with various "We are real!" and "You're a figment!" with a great deal of "Oh come on!» Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror sighed, and was about to ask one of relevant questions, when the hobbit beat him, loudly proclaiming:

"Who are death eaters?"

Surprisingly, the hobbit's loud question silenced everybody, and even the wizard turned and deigned the hobbit with a small smile. Meanwhile, girl's face hardened and, if possible, she tensed even more.

"They are You-Know-Who's servants," she answered with much hate.

"Erm, excuse me, but I don't know who," Master Baggins again voiced everybody's thought, and this time girl's brow furrowed in confusion and irritation.

"Well, you know, You-Know-Who," she repeated again.

"Sorry lass, but we really do not know who you are referring to," ah, finally Balin decided to join in this not very successful interrogation.

"Dark Lord! We do not speak his name!" The ginger hissed, pulling at her ginger ponytail.

"Dark Lord? Sauron?"

* * *

After a long and confusing explanation about two different time lords, about magic, and about why the hell a 15 years old was fighting against dark wizards, the Company, plus Gandalf, decided that Ginny (girl's name was revealed during this conversation) simply cannot be left on the Green Road.

"Will you at least give me my wand back?" She sweetly asked Gandalf once it was established that the dwarves really needed to move.

The wizard thoughtfully harrumphed. "Depends. Will you promise me to not use it against us?"

She looked concentrated when she answered.

"As long as you lot don't attack me, I won't."

"Good! But just to be on the safe side, I won't give it back to you until I'm sure in you!" With that wizard quickly moved to the head of the group, living Ginny gaping like a fish.

"Don't worry, miss Ginny, he does that all the time," their burglar spoke to her kindly, making her jump a little bit and she had to look down to meet the hobbit's eyes. Thorin was still leaning on his new sword (so what if it's elvish, it was an amazing sword) and watched the girl, trying to guess if she really wouldn't hurt his company. But she was looking at Bilbo with amusement, and tried to smile at him, though her smile was wan.

"It is not very reassuring. I don't want to go defenseless."

His mind made, Thorin took one of his hidden knives, and tossed it her. She swiftly caught it and stared at him.

"What is this?"

"A knife. So now you're not completely defenseless."

If looks could kill, Thorin'd be dead.

"What are those?!" Ginny's hiss was loud enough that Thorin could hear it, but it was Dwalin who answered. "Orcs. Keep quiet, lass, and don't stick your ginger head out."

"Stick my-! Gandalf, give me my want back right now!"

Whatever exchange the wizard and the human child have, it is lost to Thorin, as he could hear a warg approaching them. Thorin look meaningfully at Kili and his nephew was already notching the arrow, when suddenly the ginger jumped from their hiding position beneath the boulder. She waved her wooden stick and Thorin, along with the whole gang of them, watched in astonishment as thin silver-like ropes escaped from the end of it and wrapped around both warg and its rider in a vice grip, making them fall down to the dwarves' feet. The dwarves killed warg and its mount within moments, quietly, and once they are dead, Thorin realized that mere moments have passed since Ginny jumped from the hiding place. Everyone was quiet, and the unnatural stillness was interrupted only by wind's howling.

Somewhere far from them Thorin could hear other wargs and orcs chase Radagast.

"Come!" Gandalf was the first to recover from stupor, jostling the dwarves into running. Thorin spurt into action, snagging Ginny's elbow, unwilling to let this child far from him.

* * *

After Gandalf tricked them into going to Rivendell, after the dinner with only some leaves to eat, after the council with elf Lord Elrond that only resulted in decision to stay in elven city for two more weeks, only then Ginny made herself known. She hadn't been invited to the council with Elrond, but nonetheless, when Thorin was about to retire for the night, she stepped from around a pillar, face hard.

"Is there any way for me to get back?" She demanded without a preamble, eyes flicking from Gandalf to Elrond.

"Ah," the wizard sighed startled, and Thorin felt irritation at him, so before the man could try explain Ginny, Thorin interrupted him.

"No later than today's morning Ginny Weasley appeared within our camp in a beam of light. She claims to have come from another world, and by mistake to that."

"There was a battle, and a lot of dangerous magical artefacts," she said when the dwarf glanced at her. "If there is a way to get back, I need to find it! My friends were surrounded by our enemies, and I don't even know whether they made out alive! And if they have, they probably think me dead!"

She had her hands crossed over her chest, a posture made to intimidate, but her tense stance betrayed her fear and anger. With no small amount of amusement Thorin thought that even her fire-red hair looked angry, sticking in every direction from her messy ponytail.

Meanwhile, Elrond sighed.

"I am only confident to say that you are not a solitary case. I do not see why Mithrandir didn't tell you this though," there was a slight jibe in Elrond's voice.

"It seems that wizards of Gandalf's like rarely like to share important information regarding others," there was venom in her voice.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about!"

"As I was saying," for just a moment Thorin felt sorry for Elrond, for it seemed that the elf had to deal with Gandalf far more than Thorin. "There are several cases of people appearing from other worlds. And all of them, without a fail, appeared within a day's proximity to Rivendell. I do not know why so. However I know that it always took great magic to bring them back. And I am not sure you will like what I will tell next."

"Please tell!" Ginny proclaimed just as Thorin grumbled "Get on with it!"

The elf ruler eyes them warily for a moment and then sighed. "The only source of magic that is fit to send you back is from a dragon-hoard."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N. I am so sorry for the lonng delay. I swear I will update sooner next chapter.  
Also I am baffled with the response this fic got. Thank you all. I am too shy to answer comments, so here is a collective thank you to everyone who took time to write a couple of kind words.

* * *

There was silence for several seconds, but then everyone started talking at once:

"How a dragon hoard can help anything?" The burglar exclaimed.

"Are you sure, Elrond?" Gandalf.

"Well, where can I find it?" this was Ginny.

"I will not take a child to Smaug!" Thorin shouted over everyone's' voices, silencing them. "I will not take a child, not matter how able to protect herself, across the whole of Middle Earth to certain death."

"I don't' think you understand," Ginny stepped closer, her voice full of rage. "There are my friends, my brother, that are fighting dark forces! I will do literally anything to get back home! And if it takes going on god damn foot to some distant cave with dragon gold, I will!"

"It is not a cave, but a mountain!" Thorin found himself defending Erebor angrily. "And it is not that simple! There is a dragon upon that gold!"

"So?" Came a stubborn reply, met with gasps, but Weasley didn't seem bothered by it, too busy glaring at Thorin. "It's not like I haven't seen dragons before-"

"You had seen dragons before?" Gandalf asked, and even Thorin had to look at the girl in new light. To have seen a dragon before...

"One of my brothers is dragon tamer," she seemed confused at everyone's shock and then realisation dawned on her. "You mean to say dragons aren't common here?"

"You mean dragons are common were you're from?!" Master Baggins shot back.

"Well, yes. Not too much, because they cause a lot of trouble," Elrond, to Thorin's surprise, let out a pained hiss. "But there are colonies where they live happily and don't torment muggles, I mean people."

"There are ice drakes far to the north in Grey Mountains, and the only living fire dragon that lives in Middle Earth is the one that intruded our homeland and made my people flee it!" Thorin didn't even realise that by the end of his sentence he was bellowing in rage. He felt angry and hurt. People in her world apparently kept catered dragons, while the dragon Thorin met had only cause him ruin and death.

Ginny seemed to be taken aback for a moment, but then she said, calmly.

"Maybe your dragon is bigger and worse than those Charlie works with, but this dragon seems to be my only chance to get back home. Surely you can appreciate the sentiment."

Thorin didn't have what to say to that. Elrond, the confound elf, apparently had.

"So this is your plan, Thorin Oakenshield? To kill Smaug?"

"And return homeland, yes," the hobbit sniffed prissily, making the dwarf King look at him in surprise. He didn't expect the hobbit to defend him, not with the way he was treating him. Meanwhile hobbit carried on. "I very noble quest, I'm sure. And you cannot really deny Thorin that, nor I see why should you oppose us."

"I know a lot about dragons," Ginny quickly inserted, "They are magical beasts, you can't exactly kill one with swords."

"And you, with your unusual magic, can kill it?" Gandalf's voice was laced with suspicion.

"Of course I can't! Even a highly trained wizard can't simply kill a dragon! It takes more than one!"

"Then what use would we have of you, if I do deem you fit enough to travel with us?" Thorin asked. "Where is a guarantee that you, a young human, won't become a liability? That long treks won't exhaust you, that you won't hold us back?"

Ginny's smile was crooked when she answered: "I have six elder brothers. I knew how to keep up with people bigger and stronger since I was a baby."

* * *

Two weeks later when the Company sneaked out of elvish city, there were fifteen of them.

* * *

True to her words, the human never held them back, despite her obvious youth. Dwarves took to her with wariness, just like they took to Bilbo Baggins at the beginning, but much like with the hobbit, Ginny was soon let into the Company properly. Though Thorin could see that she herself was wary of them, he also could see that she wasn't overly cautious, just enough not to be deemed too suspicious and unfriendly.

Ginny appeared in Middle Earth with nothing but what was on her back, and no matter how Thorin disliked elves, they gave the human all the travelling gear she needed, and now she was clad in leather armour over her own odd clothes, and in a warm grey cloak that elves insisted she took.

And as for weapons, she carried the knife Thorin gave her, and her wand, safely tucked into the leather vambrace on her left arm.

Thorin kept eyes on both her and Master Baggins, for it was his job to look for those he wasn't sure could protect themselves, or could jeopardize the quest. And besides they weren't dwarves. If a dwarf dies on this quest, at least Thorin knew the dwarf put up the fight before his demise, and at least the part of responsibility was lifted from his shoulders.

Thorin knew for sure that Master Baggins didn't even know how to hold his letter-opener, and Ginny... Well, she might have magic, but there was no telling if it would be enough for her. The dratted wizard carried a sword, after all.

So yes, Thorin considered himself responsible for the hobbit and human, and didn't like the fact at all.

Even though the two of them helped to acquire Elrond's blessing on reclaiming Erebor. Not that Thorin needed it. The other item he didn't need, but that was certainly appreciated, was a letter Elrond wrote to Thanduil, telling him that the dwarves, the hobbit and the human were on a missive from him. A blatant lie, but a lie that would be useful, should they be misfortunate enough to cross pass with the accursed elf.

When Balin had explained why dwarves didn't like elves, and Thranduil most of them, Ginny nodded in understanding, and said: "He certainly sounds like one of those uptight purebloods."

Which, of course, prompted the explanation of wizardry hierarchy, something half the dwarves couldn't grasp, but their hobbit quickly got the hang of.

"Not too different from what we hobbits have, if I must say." the burglar proclaimed. "Like Brandybucks with their boats and Tooks with our adventuring are forever odd and not at all respectable," then he frowned. "Though none would try to chase them all. Except for Lobelia, perhaps."

"Chase off," Ginny laughed. "Try kill. You-Know-Who's mission is to kill all the muggleborns, muggles, and blood traitors. This is actually why I need to get back - there is a battle."

Dwalin shifted next to Thorin and spoke: "And why exactly children are fighting?"

The girl shifted, her face becoming hard.

"Because no one else would listen to Harry," she declared. "Harry can see into You-Know-Who's head, and he saw that he stole Harry's godfather! But there was no one who would listen to him, so it were only us to save Sirius."

"And did you?" the bald dwarf raised his split eyebrow. The girl licked her lips and looked down, before giving a distraught answer.

"No. Apparently, that was a trap. We came to the Ministry, and there were Death Eaters."

* * *

As it soon became apparent to Thorin, although Ginny was friendly to everybody, and as loud as Bofur, she almost never spoke about herself, except for those couple of times. And, well, wasn't that just like their hobbit? The hobbit was all polite smiles, but the only thing Thorin knew about him was that he was partly Took. And no, Thorin wasn't stalking the creature, he just was very observant. Observant when it came to living and breathing, it wasn't his fault that the roads were particularly keen on running away from him, Mahal curse them.

During one of his night shifts, on the second watch, Thorin caught the movement from where the girl slept. He saw how she quietly got up and-

"Where are you going?" He asked, his voice carrying over the sleeping dwarves.

"Where do you think?" Ginny snapped, but her tense shoulders gave away that she wasn't just going for a nightly mission into closest bushes.

"Do not take me for a fool," Thorin said calmly, watching the girl visibly struggling with herself. After a tense silence, she finally turned to him.

"I was going to practice spells. I haven't mastered some defensive ones, and with Umbridge in school we didn't really have chance to practice outside classrooms."

"So this are not spells approved by your school?"

"Merlin, no. Ministry thinks that we don't need to know even basic of defenses. Defense Against Dark Arts became a joke," she snorted derisively. Thorin regarded her silently. She was incredibly young even by human standards, and yet she was fierce and willful. She would be at home among dwarves, if it came to that. For her own sake, Thorin wished it didn't. Everyone deserved a home.

"No need to hide in woods," he said. "Come here and practice here. I, for one, would like to see magic at it raw form."

"I won't able to practice some violent ones with all them is close proximity," she answered, reasonably.

"Then come and practice non-violent ones. Surely they don't teach how to murder from the start."

"They don't teach us to murder period!" She retorted, and started walking to Thorin, carefully stepping over sleeping lumps.

"Then do show me what they teach you," by this point Thorin was really curious what Ginny would do. The only spell so far he saw for sure was when she tied that orc. Though, come to think of it, while others, and Thorin as well, seemed to suffer from mosquitos and other bugs, the infernal insects kept their distance from the young girl. Or what about that time when it rained, and everyone was wet and miserable, but she, although sopping wet as well, didn't look too bothered? The dwarf had a startling realization that Ginny's been using magic all this time, all of a month being with them, and no one noticed. Well. Now he will just have to watch her even more carefully.

Weasley set down next to him, leaning on the fallen tree trunk behind them. "This is a very complicated incantation, and I don't really see its use in here, but I really need to master it," she started speaking quietly. "When I get back, there might be dementors for all I know. And I don't want to meet a dementor unprepared again."

There was residual fear in her voice, that made Thorin wonder what exactly those creatures were, but he didn't have time to voice the question, as she already spoke some unfamiliar words. The dwarf watched with interest as the cloud of white shiny mist appeared from the tip of her wand. It was less than what Thorin expected, but, come to think of it, Thorin didn't know what he expected. He just wanted to see some magic, and if it sounded like a dwarfling's whining even in his own head, no one had to know. Still.

"A cloud?" He whispered, as though not to startle Ginny, but in reality he didn't want to wake anyone.

"A mighty cloud," she countered just as quietly. "It makes some very dark creatures go away. But actually it is supposed to take a solid form, a doe, or, I don't know, a dog. I still have much to train."

And so they spent quiet some time sitting together, with Ginny conjuring and offing her cloud from time to time. But by the end of his shift, Thorin shooed Ginny off to sleep. They had to cross the most dangerous part of the pass tomorrow, and it looked like a storm was brewing. They all had to get as much sleep as possible.


End file.
